


The Snow Sprite Incident

by Tell_Me_Tales



Series: Dimension 297 [10]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Complicated (Platonic?) Relationships, Courtly Love, F/M, Gen, Grunkle4Grandpa, Hypothermia, Love Confessions, Lowered inhibitions, Naked Cuddling, No Sex, Pines Family circa 1970s, Pre-Series, Romantic Friendship, Unrequited Love, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-15 17:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11811108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tell_Me_Tales/pseuds/Tell_Me_Tales
Summary: Next time, Carla is going to tackle him face first into the snow and drag him right back into the cabin. Honestly, Ford. Don't you know better than to go running around the Oregon wilderness, inDecember, without so much as a proper winter coat on?





	1. Never Met a Cryptid He Didn't Like

**Gravity Falls, OR**  
**December 04, 1979**

Stanford Pines glances out the window and freezes in his tracks before suddenly breaking into a flurry of motion, performing an abrupt about face and scrambling out the door.

"Ford?" Carla calls after the man.

"I'll be back soon!" he promises as he runs toward the woods.

"At least put on a real coat!" she yells after him.

Ford looks back with an excited grin -- the one Carla has quietly dubbed 'Nerd Smile Number Three: New Discovery' -- and the woman realizes her request is a lost cause before he even opens his mouth to reply. "No time!" And then he's gone, form swallowed by the surrounding trees.

"Ugh," Carla groans and closes the door, "Stanford."

"Uncle For' trouble?" Jason questions from his seat at the kitchen table, looking between her and the door the scientist had bolted through just seconds ago.

"Only if he doesn't come back before he turns into a popsicle out there," Carla mutters under her breath as she rubs her temples. With a sigh, she drops her hands and tells her son, "Not yet, Baby. Eat your snack."

"Yes, Mama."

* * *

The sun sets early this time of year and the temperature plummets shortly thereafter. These two facts would not bother Carla overly much if it weren't for another two facts. Stanford had _not_ been properly dressed for the weather when he left the house, and that event had happened over an hour ago -- nearly two, by this point -- and the man in question still hasn't returned.

She'd moved Jason's bedtime up a few hours tonight, which means she'll likely be dealing with a cranky toddler come tomorrow, but it's better than the alternative of taking her not-quite-one-year-old out into the Gravity Falls woods after dark. If she's really lucky, she won't need to enter the woods, either. (Ideally, she'd be able to call the local police department to organize a search for the missing scientist, but with the recent snowfall they've been effectively cut off from the town. By the time help could reach them, the search party would more realistically be looking for a body than a person. She calls the police anyway, just in case.)

"-- No, I understand, but I'm going out to look for him myself. ... Thank you, Henry. Susan would be willing to take him, short-term at least. ... No, don't call her yet. There's still every chance things will work themselves out. I don't want to worry her for nothing. ... I know my limits, Sheriff. I don't plan to go out too far, but I can't take the chance that something happens to me and it leaves Jason without anyone here to care for him. I'll call again once I come back from my search. If I don't, well, I guess you'll have two missing persons to look for. ... No, I'm sure. ... Thank you, Sheriff Michaels. Good bye."

The woman returns the phone to its cradle with a sigh. That's one worry taken care of.

Carla zips up her winter coat, pulls her knit cap on over her head, and straightens her spine in determination. Armed with a large metal flashlight in her left hand and her father's old pistol in her coat pocket, the woman opens the door and prays she won't run into anything that will try to eat her.

Carla takes a breath in an attempt to steady her nerves before she slips through the doorway and leaves the warmth, light, and relative safety of the house behind her. "You better still be alive, Stanford, because I am going to _throttle_ you for this one."


	2. Frozen Footfalls

Carla passes the treeline cautiously, following rather literally in Ford's footsteps. She doesn't like the forest after dark. It's too difficult to tell what's nearby and from what direction danger may come. She much prefers to do any traipsing through the woods during the daylight hours, thank you very much. It can't be helped, however. Ford needs to be found _now._

She can only hope that Stanford hasn't wandered too far away from the direction he'd started off going, because she'll never find him in time if he has. She doesn't know the woods a fraction as well as her brother-in-law does and all she can do is keep to the trail he's left behind.

It's slow going. The snow reaches past Carla's ankles (in some places, closer to mid-calf) and there's no telling what might be hiding under the surface until she's already put her foot down. Add to that low hanging branches weighed down by the frozen water and the sole source of illumination being the flashlight in her hand, it's no wonder the search moves at a snail's pace. It's still frustrating.

Carla has been stumbling her way through the forest for probably less than ten minutes, even if it feels like it's been longer, when her eye catches on something as she sweeps her battery-powered torch off to the side of the trail. It takes the woman a few seconds to be sure of what she's seeing. Disappearing from view, behind a cluster of tree trunks and leafless brush, are a pair of hands and sleeves half-buried in the white blanket covering the forest floor.

Carla takes off running.

"Stanford!"

There's no reply.

Carla falls to her knees next to the man, dropping the flashlight as she reaches for him. "C'mon, Ford! Wake up!" she begs as she shakes the scientist. Again, she fails to receive any response.

The woman grunts as she rolls Stanford over. Carla fumbles to reclaim her flashlight from the snow. The beam catches the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the thin cloud of water vapor produced by his breathing. It's terribly reassuring, considering that Stanford's pale, doll-like state had her fearing the worst for a moment. A quick visual scan fails to turn up obvious injuries or ominous patches of blood. As far as she can tell, Ford is still in one piece and merely unconscious. Not that losing consciousness in freezing temperatures is ever a good sign.

A quick peek in the direction he would have been coming from reveals footprints roughly three-or-four yards away, a fall, and then drag marks up to where she found him lying. She can only conclude that he'd tripped and then proceeded to crawl until he ultimately passed out. Carla looks the other way and can barely make out the lights of the house beyond the trees. Ford had nearly made it home. He'd gotten close. (But as her father used to say, 'close' only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.) Well, she'd just have to get him the rest of the way there.

Carla tucks the flashlight into the crook of a tree that points it the right way and prays that it will stay put. "Alright, Poindexter," the woman mutters as she wraps her arms around the man's chest, "let's get you home." She plants her feet and pulls.

"Fuck!" Carla's feet slide out from under her and she falls backward into the snow. Ford moves bare inches. She stares up at the branches overhead, starkly illuminated by her torch. The woman groans. "Even underweight you're still too damn heavy, Ford," she grumbles in dissatisfaction before a thought causes her to add, "And I need to stop talking like this before I fall into the habit." She really doesn't want to be responsible for teaching her baby words like 'fuck' and 'damn' before his first birthday.

"Okay," Carla huffs as she pushes herself upright, "I need a new plan."

The woman considers her options for a few seconds (And what she wouldn't do for a Stanford-Pines-sized sled right about now...) then settles on a different strategy. If she's right, this way she'll be lifting less weight than she would be trying to support his entire upper body _and_ the snow should help protect his head. She hopes. Regardless, it's the best she's got so it will have to do. Carla grabs the wayward scientist by his feet and starts dragging her burden in the direction of the cabin.

It works, mostly.

By the time she reaches the clearing surrounding the house, Carla is winded from the demanding task of being an average-sized woman with no particular athletic strengths hauling the dead-weight of a full-grown man over several yards blanketed by snow. She's cold, wet, exhausted, and taken more than a few tumbles. She continues on doggedly.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," the woman pants as she labors, "Almost there. Just a little more, Carla, you can do this."

She drops Ford's legs once she gets to the porch. Carla trips as she scrambles up the stairs and barely catches herself on the railing to avoid landing sprawled across the wooden planks. "A little more, just a little more. Don't give up."

She nearly cries when, between her nerveless fingers and snow-soaked gloves, she can't get a strong enough grip on the round doorknob to turn it. Carla struggles in pulling off her gloves before finally succeeding and letting them fall to the ground without sparing them so much as another thought. With her fingers numb, Carla needs to use two hands to get the door open. It's an awkward, twisting motion using her entire upper-body as she pinches the knob between both palms to apply the pressure and friction needed, but she manages to do it.

Door open, she hurries back to collect Stanford. (Once this is over, Carla is going to make sure they install differently shaped handles for the front and back doors.) Carla grabs the man around the chest again and this time, with wood under her feet instead of snow, she's able to lift him just enough to yank him up onto the porch and then into the house. She doesn't doubt that Ford gains a few bruises from her rough treatment, though.

The instant she has Ford's feet past the threshold, she collapses to the cabin's floorboards in exhaustion.

Carla gasps greedily for breath as she lies on the floor of the kitchen. She can't rest yet. The woman groans and crawls on trembling limbs back to the door to close it. She jerks down the zipper of her coat, pulls her arms free of its sleeves, and then pushes it against the seam between door and floor. She notices the draft every morning and just because she can't feel it in her current state doesn't mean it's magically gone.

She needs to get Ford out of his soaked clothes if she doesn't want the water and melting snow to leach whatever warmth might still be left in him. Carla tugs and fumbles and, on occasion, rips the layers of cloth from the man's form, all while mentally cursing her half-frozen, half-burning fingers for making the task more difficult than it should be. All of her brother-in-law's clothes end up in a haphazard pile at the base of the back door along with her coat. She hesitates for a fraction of a second before stripping Ford of his boxers as well. Now isn't the time to worry about modesty.

She needs to dry him off next. The towels are upstairs and so are the blankets. Carla heaves herself up and shakily wanders out of the kitchen, down the hall, and to the foot of the staircase. She clings to the handrail as she ascends, thankful that she's starting to get feeling back in her fingers even as the burning sensation in the digits grows stronger.

Jason sleeps soundly on the bed just as he had been when she'd left. Another thing to be grateful for.

Carla plucks a shirt, a pair of hotpants, and some underwear from her collection of clothes before going to the bathroom. (She doesn't bother grabbing a bra. She'd never get it latched.) The woman strips herself of her current outfit. The outer layer of her clothes are snow-drenched and the inner layer is sweat-drenched. She tosses the soaked clothes into the bathtub, including her boots that have been squishing excess water out of their soles with every step for the last several minutes. Carla grabs a towel and haphazardly pats herself down with it before that too gets thrown into the tub. She then proceeds to dress herself with poorly coordinated movements. The shaking in her arms and legs is getting worse. She can't tell how much is shivering and how much is her exhaustion but she knows she won't be able to push herself much farther at this rate.

Carla grabs every fresh towel in the bathroom, a grand total of three, before heading into the bedroom across the hall.


End file.
